New Fleet on the Block: China’s Coast Guard Comes Together

In a move with significant implications for territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, the Chinese government announced on Sunday that it plans to centralize bureaucratic control over its maritime law enforcement agencies by consolidating them under the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) and its parent ministry, the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources.

Many analysts—ourselves included—focus heavily on China’s rapidly-developing navy. Yet some of the most profound effects on China’s near-term operations in its maritime neighborhood are likely to emerge from ongoing reforms that put China on a path to creating Asia’s largest coast guard. While further behind in high-end capabilities, China’s civil maritime forces combined currently have nearly as many large-displacement cutters and patrol vessels as Japan’s Coast Guard, the region’s largest and most capable.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

A handout picture taken by the Japan Coast Guard on Feb. 4, 2013 shows a Chinese marine surveillance ship (R) alongside a Japan Coast Guard ship near the disputed islets known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and Diaoyu islands in China, in the East China Sea.

While Chinese carrier strike groups lie years in the future, both in components and organization, the organizational elements now being integrated into China’s first unified Coast Guard are operating actively today.

In remarks delivered in conjunction with the National People’s Congress on Sunday, State councilor Ma Kai said that consolidation was needed to remedy the fact that the country’s five separate maritime law enforcement bodies were insufficient to fulfill China’s law enforcement needs, protect its sovereignty, and safeguard its maritime rights and interests, including a maritime economy that could account for 10% of national economic output by 2015 (in Chinese).

For years, China’s five largest civil maritime agencies were controlled by different parent organizations, earning them the moniker “five dragons contending for the sea.” Four dragons are now slated for consolidation under the SOA:

China Marine Surveillance (CMS) [already under SOA]

Border Control Department (BCD) [formerly under the Ministry of Public Security]

Fisheries Law Enforcement Command (FLEC) [formerly under the Ministry of Agriculture]

General Administration of Customs [under the State Council]

The fifth dragon, the Maritime Safety Administration (MSA), under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Transport, is not generally referenced in official statements describing the merger.

China’s ongoing civil maritime command-and-control reforms have been mentioned intermittently for years, based in part on close study of measures China’s neighbors have taken to improve their own coast guard capabilities. One such study (pdf), published in 2007 by researchers at the Ningbo Maritime Police Academy, noted how South Korea successfully unified different maritime law enforcement agencies into a single, powerful national coast guard. While the jury remains out the ultimate impact of China’s fledgling measures, the years of thought and operational experience behind today’s ongoing reforms suggest that they have strong political support and enjoy a good chance of succeeding in materially enhancing China’s maritime law enforcement capabilities.

Reform Objectives

The broad aim of the reform is to enable Chinese maritime law enforcement capabilities to be used in a more controlled manner while also retaining their effectiveness as an instrument of national power. Stronger central control will help Beijing better ensure that the new unified Coast Guard promotes national objectives while restraining individual commanders from taking rash actions that could trigger unintended escalation of maritime conflicts.

Japan has long recognized the power of Coast Guard forces to protect national interests in an effective manner that arouses less opposition and risk of escalation than use of naval warships. Indeed, local media recently reported that former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda had ordered the country’s Maritime Self-Defense Force to remain out of sight over the horizon during Chinese forays into the vicinity of the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, instead letting the Japanese Coast Guard play the front-line role, after his administration nationalized the islands in September.

Now China is moving to further diversify its options by creating a similarly versatile Coast Guard that may even surpass Japan’s numerically within the next few years. China’s civil maritime sector is in the midst of a large shipbuilding spree that could add 36 modern cutters and patrol ships over the next five years (in Chinese) and make China’s Coast Guard the region’s largest by at least some metrics. Civil maritime vessels require mechanical reliability and the ability to operate at sea and support their crew effectively for sufficient periods, but tend to be simpler, cheaper and quicker to build than top-end warships. These factors allow China’s capable shipyards to ramp up numbers rapidly if desired.

Japanese defense analysts are already fretting over the possibility that in two to three years, Chinese Coast Guard forces could become able to deploy more ships to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands area than the Japan Coast Guard will be able to handle. As of 1 April 2012, the Japan Coast Guard had a total of 448 vessels and 73 aircraft (pdf). While 51 of the Japan Coast Guard’s cutters are in the 1,000-ton class, China’s civil maritime forces already have 47 such vessels and are expected to add at least 20 by 2015 .

USCG knows the islands are disputed territory between two countries, Uncle Sam will not fight for the interests of japan for get nothing out of it. Let china and japan fight so US can get involved and get benifits from it..

8:17 am March 13, 2013

Gene Sass wrote:

China's Coast Guard, and other para-military services, are unlike other nation's coats guards in that their main purpose is not law enforcement or search & rescue, but to assist in bolstering China's territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. If China continues to use this route in order to avoid sending PLAN vessels and potentially triggering the US-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty, the burden on the JCG will be enormous. I see no reason why an agreement can not me made for the USCG to assist in patrolling the Senkakus as part of the defense of US Bases on Okinawa prefecture.

2:49 am March 13, 2013

PJM wrote:

It is interesting that, in an article comparing the organization of various Asian Coast Guard services, you did not compare or contrast it with the organization and authorities of the U.S. Coast Guard. This trend in China, of increasing activity by its proposed more unified 'Coast Guard,' may make U.S. Coast Guard efforts and capabilities more significant in U.S. engagement with China.

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